


These Naked Glimpses of my Soul

by lalauhale (amyraudenfelds)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Mild-Gore I guess, all the way up to the end is Derek confronting his grumpy self, also I had to put some Laura x Lydia bc I am a person with feels, witch's curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyraudenfelds/pseuds/lalauhale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still grabbing hold of her, he says angrily. “Go to hell, witch.” And slashes her stomach open. The blood begins to escape and to drip to the muddy soil of the woods. And the witch smiles.<br/>“Oh, Derek, honey,” She says, gargling with her own blood “Why don’t we both go together?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Naked Glimpses of my Soul

_"You remember too much,_

_my mother said to me recently._

_Why hold onto all that? And I said,_

_Where can I put it down?"_

Anne Carson "The Glass Essay" 

*** 

Derek is too late. 

He turns to face the witch; however, she had grabbed hold of him already. The rest of Scott’s pack was too far from them, and if they interrupted them, it might cause more harm than good. 

The witch grabs Derek’s arm, his claws already out and ready to attack. She smiles at him, a mocking expression, and Derek bares his teeth at her, growling loudly. 

“Derek Hale. You are going to kill me, but I will make you suffer.” She says, reassured. Derek trembles a little, but still manages to twist his arm out of her grip. She hisses loudly, and Derek claws at her exposed skin, in her collarbone. The witch lets out a scream, it starts as a pained sound and then it turns into a delighted laugh. Derek is thrown off by that, but maintains his guard up. They continue the dangerous dance for a few moments, until Derek predicts her next move, he dodges her black nails and avoids the scratch, and then grabs hold of her arm, puts a little pressure in it, in order for her to feel her shoulder dislocating from position. This time there is no denying: the witch yells from the pain. She turns her face to look at Derek’s. She mumbles something under her breath, and kisses him on the mouth. Derek pushes her, and she laughs darkly. Shit, Derek thinks, he bets she cursed him. 

He spits out of disgust. When he turns to look at the witch again, her eyes are as red as flames. 

Still grabbing hold of her, he says angrily. “Go to hell, witch.” And slashes her stomach open. The blood begins to escape and to drip to the muddy soil of the woods. And the witch smiles. 

“Oh, Derek, honey,” She says, gargling with her own blood “Why don’t we both go together?” 

That disturbs him more than he would admit it. He finishes her slashing her throat with his claws. Scott and his pack are all looking at the scene, anxious. Derek lets the body of the witch fall down. He sighs out of relieve, and turns around to nod in confirmation that he is fine. Except, he isn’t fine at all. 

He begins feeling an excruciating pain in his center, and it spreads all over him. It’s like his limbs are being tear apart. He screams, and looks down to see his muscles falling out of his bones, his flesh falling to the ground and he starts to melt. It feels like nothing he ever knew before, not even being set alight on fire could hurt this much. Stiles and Scott look at him like they are not grasping what’s going on. Derek tries to say something, but it appears that his tongue is also falling out of his composition. The body of the witch turns to black ash around him, and with the wind, revolves around him, stretching out, black and cold, and they create a wall between him and the rest of the pack. Derek wants to get out, but they are covering up until the sky now. They stand in suspension for one moment… 

…And then they close down upon him. 

Derek is too late to close his mouth while the ashes invade him and make him not able to see anything anymore. 

He wakes up in the woods. But it isn’t Beacon Hills Preserve at all. He knows it isn’t because of all the smells. It smells like humidity, musk and death. Derek stands up, and he feels a little lightheaded, but checks and sees all his limbs have returned to him. He gets up from the ground, and brushes his shirt in order to make it less dirty. His muscles are stiff and it’s hard to walk around. 

He hears a sound in the woods. Footsteps. Derek hides behind a tree, and clears his ears. There’s a sharp breath, shaken and rough. The silhouette enters Derek’s field of vision. It’s a man, Derek reasons, for the breadth of his shoulders and its stature. There’s a smell of blood, and fear. The wolf inside Derek feels threatened. 

The man continues walking, continues stumbling into the roots that are apparent on the ground. These woods don’t smell like the one Derek knows. No. This is another place. Maybe another state. 

The man passes in front of the tree Derek’s been hiding. He’s breathing with difficulty. And Derek’s wolf vision catches sight of who it is. Derek’s taken aback by the vision and has to put one hand in front of his mouth in order not to denounce himself. 

The man is his father. 

Suddenly, Derek knows exactly where he is. This is Washington, in 1999. Derek knows what’s about to play out. He had heard this story countless times, exhaustively. He replayed it in his mind when he got older, still denying what had happened. 

He follows his father, very swiftly. Derek’s father was hunting. He was one of the best hunters known, and chose to fall in love with one of the most powerful alphas he had ever come across. From that love, and posterior marriage, three kids were born. Laura, Derek and Cora. And they were all somewhere with Talia and the rest of the family right now, at this moment, while his father hunted in Washington. Back in Beacon Hills, at this precise moment, Laura was thirteen, Derek was ten, and Cora was three years-old. 

This was the night their father died. 

Derek feels like a little kid all over again, wanting to warn his father about what was just going to happen. His hands are sweating, as he hears the werewolf coming to kill his dad. 

They had been walking alongside a creek, and usually, the scent of the moist that surrounded creeks were Derek’s favorite, but this time, it did nothing to release him from the chest tightening feeling that was knowing what would play out. 

Derek can hear his footsteps, his father’s and the werewolf panting, sniffing around. Derek’s father breaks into a sprint, and so does Derek. He’s running loudly but his father doesn’t seem to notice, what makes Derek suspicious. 

They go through trees and Derek’s father falls and scratches himself many times, but doesn’t stop. He has a scent that Derek’s never seen him wearing. It’s fear. Not fear for his life, but the fear for his family’s life. He fears for Laura and Derek and Cora, and Talia. He fears he’s going to break the promise he’s made Talia. To comeback and help Laura with her woodshop assignment, and to help Derek with his math homework, and to teach Cora how to not wolf out on things. 

Derek feels the catch before his father does. The wolf is not chasing them, it’s leading them. Leading them to a trap. 

He sees red eyes in the middle of the trees, and his chest tightens, and he feels like he can’t breathe right. 

“Dad,” Derek warns, but his father doesn’t turn back. “Dad!” 

His father doesn’t hear him. And the wolf revealed himself. 

“If I’m going down, might as well take you with me.” Derek’s father mumbles under his breath and pulls out an arrow soaked in wolfsbane powder. He aims. But he is too late. The wolf catches up on him, it jumps right out from the middle of the shadows and lands its teeth in his shoulder that had the bow in a grip. Derek’s father screams, and Derek can feel his pain. 

“Dad, no!” Derek yells, and then he wolfs out and tries to tackle the other wolf. Not a damage done, Derek goes through the other wolf. As if he was a ghost. 

Derek ends up tripping on the forest’s soil, going right in the course of a tree. He bumps into it and breaks its trunk, spreading splinters everywhere. He turns and sees that his father is trying to stand up. He musters up the strength to pull out a silver machete he carried with him, and draws it into the wolfs core, but not before the wolf rips out his throat with its fangs. 

His father falls to his knees, and Derek literally feels the pain taking over him. The pain that he sees his father going through is mirrored in him. He puts his hand on his throat, and it comes back as pale as it ever was, but he feels the gashing that the teeth provokes on his father’s neck. He feels himself running out of air, and forces his feet to walk a few steps and lands in the front of his father. 

Derek sees the terrified expression in his father’s eyes, and a tear falls from his eye and makes way in his cheek. Derek hasn’t noticed, but he is crying as well. He tries to put his hands in a way to make the blood current stop, but his hands just cross his father’s body, ghostly. 

His father falls with face front to the dirt soil and his blood make the dry soil stain, making it a dark and wet brown. 

Derek is almost knocked off his feet at the vision, and feels his lungs refusing to search for air. Derek falls in all fours and cries. He cries for many minutes. Like always, he was late to save someone that he loved. He says his sorries to his father’s corpse, and sits down by a tree, watching the blood dry on the ground, making it brutal forever. No matter how many years went by, that was still the ground where his father had perished on. He took the wolf with him. When Derek was a kid, his father used to look at him and tell him that what made great soldiers is the fact that they never run away from their duty. 

Derek wasn’t a good soldier, then. 

He stays there for too much time, before he falls asleep, wary and miserable. 

He wakes up and instantly feels the scents of strawberry and cinnamon. He is somewhere he knows very well, now. He would know it even in a million years. 

He knows that if he walks through the woods, to the place he was used to, he would end up in the root cellar. And if he took a turn, he would end up in the old, deactivated distillery. He knows, some place of his brain tells him, that if he continues walking to the root cellar, he will find himself and Paige inside. He knows that. 

Still, he walks in, because it doesn’t look like he has any other way to go. Derek doesn’t know if he is dead and if he went to hell, but he bets on it. 

He is stunned at what he sees, but not entirely surprised. He sees Paige, and a younger version of himself, holding her in his arms. He is crying, and takes some of Paige’s pain away. The Derek that’s watching can share of her pain, just like it happened to his father. He’s been through this. It’s nothing new, but the numb hole that he reserved for this happening is set alight again. And he feels as if he was the fifteen year-old, that suffered along in front of him. Like his father, young Derek and Paige couldn’t see him either. 

It seems to take forever, and Derek remembers as if. But finally, Paige asks with the weakest voice if he can end the suffering and put her at peace. Derek flinches when he sees himself doing so. Nothing’s changed, except for the color of his eyes. And he sees himself mirroring and glowing blue eyes when the young version of himself does so. 

The way he feels miserable at that is nothing new to him, but still brings out so many regrets and guilt that Derek doesn’t know how to cope with that. It doesn’t take long, and the scene shifts. And the scent makes Derek nauseated and it feels like someone ripped his heart out of his chest. 

It’s an unmistakable scent: gasoline. He knows this woods. It’s almost his backyard, an extension of the house he grew up in. He does not see her, but he knows she’s there. As he gets closer to the house, he hears a laugh. Her laugh. She’s delighted to do what she is about to do. And the sound of it makes his spine freeze and the hair of the back of his neck stand up. 

He sees the immense silhouette of the house, with some lights still on. And then he sees it, it starts slowly, but it’s not long before it’s consuming all the house. He catches another scent; It’s the smell of his house burning. And the smell of everyone he loved burning along with it. 

When Derek and Laura first discovered what happened to their family, they were at the police station, with Deputy Stilinski telling them what happened. Laura was completely thrown off and overwhelmed with this, and Derek felt guilt crushing him. She was overwhelmed with the pain that was being a young alpha simply because their mother was dead. And she didn’t know back then, but it was all his fault. It was impossible to hide it after they took a look around the charred house and they caught a diming whiff of wolfsbane. Laura wanted to go at the Argents, but Derek told her not to. Derek told her what happened, he told her about Kate. And he cried and said he was sorry, and he was suspicious that Laura would never forgive him, but she did. Despite all of it, despite all the terrible things that would succeed in their only solely because of his decisions, she was so much better than Derek and she forgave him. They were kids and they were afraid, so they just had to run far away. And so they did. 

But now, he was in the woods while the house was still burning down in flames. Laura wasn’t around. And it was so much harder to watch it now that he actually sees what happened. And how Kate destroyed not only himself, taking away every single hope he had at a happy life, but she took away the happy lives of everyone that was inside that house. 

As Derek watches, the roof of the house explodes, and the flames start gaining on the insides quickly. Derek hears the screams, and he falls to the ground in all fours. He can’t breathe and he feels like his skin is being burned. He screams as well, matching his family’s pleads for help. But nothing happens. The house keeps burning, and Derek keeps burning. 

And then it hits him. It’s the witch’s curse. He told her to go to hell, and she went, but Derek thinks she took him with her. 

He couldn’t complain. Being defenseless and reviving every single pain he’s been through. One was hardly his fault, he recognized that, but the others… That was all Derek. Derek considered himself a murderer. His mother always told him he was a predator but not a killer, and at the end of the day, at least on Derek’s life, both seemed to be the same thing. He couldn’t get things right, no matter how hard he tried. He was always doing the wrong choice and hurting people and causing their deaths. He even caused his mother’s death. And everyone around him had to live with the perpetual misfortune that was ever coming across Derek Hale, and his own curse. Not cast by a witch, but that came within him. 

The witch’s curse is going to take him through every single dark memory he has, and he will feel the same pain as the people that were in those. Until he gave up, or died, or something… Maybe hell was supposed to be like that. And Derek thinks it’s not unfair that he feels what he feels right now, his lungs trying to gasp for air, and failing. His muscles and skin burning down, causing so much pain he’s about to collapse, and yet he doesn’t. And all through that, Derek hears a voice inside his brain, one that he recognizes as his own, telling him that that was what he did to them. Kate was a hunter. He knew that and he should’ve known better. 

The scene in front of him changes, and for his discontent, he is still breathing and alive, while the others… 

He’s at the same woods, but in a different spot. Now he is at the other end of Beacon Hills Preserve, far from his house. And he hears twigs cracking. He follows the sound, carefully contouring the trees as quick as he can, until he finds the source of it. Derek longs for what he sees, and a whimper escapes from his lips. Not that it makes any difference; the person in front of him won’t notice it anyway. 

It’s Laura, and she’s walking gracefully through the trees. Running her long and skinny fingers along them; marking them with her scent, telling any other wolves that those woods were hers. But she has a different atmosphere around her from the last time she talked to Derek, which was too long, he thinks. She is worried. He would know that. She’s pack, even in this strange witch curse driven hallucination. Laura walks looking over her shoulders, and once, she lays eyes on where Derek is following her, and he feels like she can see him, but her eyes don’t look at him with the warmth they used to, and Derek knows that she doesn’t see him at all. 

There’s another shadow in front of them. And Derek holds his breath so hard his head spins. He knows what’s about to happen, and he can’t prevent it. He just mutters a strangled “no” as Laura calls out: “Peter?” 

And when Peter turns, Derek’s shocked with the vision. Peter has his fangs out and eyes glowing steel blue. He is not the Peter he, or Laura for that matter, knows. His eyes look dead and they don’t actually see what he is doing, but he does it anyway. He tosses a handful of wolfsbane in her face, and Laura stumbles for a moment. Her eyes begin to turn to red, but before she does anything, Peter claws her, and she falls in one knee. Derek sprints and tries to toss Peter over (he knows nothing’s gonna change, but it doesn’t mean he has to sit and watch it), and unsuccessfully, falls out at the other end of Peter’s body. Now he’s facing Peter’s back. Peter doesn’t waste any time, Laura manages to shift to her wolf form, but Peter already sinks fangs on her, Derek falls back and screams, Laura howls, a pained sound, a desperate sound. Peter continues to slash and claw at her side. Derek holds his stomach with both hands, forehead resting on the woods soil, while Laura paws at the nothing and, finally, is defeated by Peter. The blood spills and her guts are exposed, and Derek is a mix of fear, pain and guilt. The wolf pelt retrieves from her skin, and the girl under it is revealed. Eyes open and no longer seeing anything. Derek trembles but manages to walk a few stumbling steps to where her body is. He knew how Laura died, he found her in the woods, and yet, he didn’t expect that kind of ferocity coming from Peter in any way. Peter who, now, runs back to wherever he came from. 

Derek trips on a root, and his knees hit the ground beside Laura, and his hands palm at the blood. Damn witch, he can’t fight or touch any of the people in his memories, but he still can feel their blood in his hands, and dirty clothes. Derek cries, and his chest heaves. That was it. He couldn’t go on anymore. Seeing Laura die… That was the most brutal thing on him. Because he had known how everything ever went down, but not this. 

Derek dries his tears with the back of his bloody hands, and tries to run his fingers through Laura’s hair, but again, it’s ineffective. Derek breathes in and out strongly, breath still shaken, the pain now, caused only by the reviving of this memory, crushes him. And he still manages to stand up, and yell at the woods. 

“Witch! I know what you are doing to me! I figured it out. I am going to see everyone I love die, aren’t I? So why don’t you kill me now?” 

A laugh echoes through the woods and sends chills up his spine. But he continues with gritted teeth, looking angrily at the darkness. 

And then a bunch of things happen at once. 

Derek is now at the bank vault, just in time to watch Erica die, hands longing for what looks like it’s him, but he isn’t sure. She’s just longing for help, as far as he’s concerned. Suddenly, he’s at his loft, where he sees himself being held to murder Boyd. Derek screams, and it’s all so fast he feels like his limbs are being torn apart. It’s the most excruciating physical pain he’s ever been through. He thinks he’s gonna die, that he’s not going to make it. 

And then he falls into empty space. He is lying there, in an empty, bright white room. He can’t see exactly where it ends or begins, and the pain on his limbs is still there. He counts how long he’s been lying there, but loses track of it. Five minutes, an hour… He doesn’t know. This is, in many ways, actually worse than reliving every unwelcome memory. Because nothing quite scares Derek as much as being left alone with his own thoughts. 

He feels desperation for everything that he did that led him up to be where he is right now. He remembers how he felt when his mother barged in through the door with tears on her face, when Derek was only ten and still hadn’t known any sorrow in his life. It was the first time Derek ever saw her crying. He would find out why later on: an alpha from a friendly pack in Washington told Talia they found her husband’s body in the woods. Derek was a kid, but soon enough it dawned on him that the world isn’t a fairytale and that we are here to suffer. No matter if people or werewolves, we all go through the soul crushing experience that is life. 

He feels terrible for Paige and imagines how she would be doing right now, if he hadn’t fallen for her. Maybe she would be married, maybe she would’ve been a famous cellist… Perhaps she would have kids now… Maybe a pair of them. He could picture it: one with her dark brown eyes, the other with the same mole on the right cheek. But that ship had sailed and Derek had to sit through and watch her mother crumble down in front of her daughter’s short coffin, the soon enough coffin, on Paige’s funeral. So many things that she would have accomplished, but her fate was cut short by one Derek Hale. 

Not to mention his family. But Derek already spent so much time and energy torturing himself with it. And nothing seemed to put his mind at ease. He would just have to live without that part of himself forever. It hurt him that he dragged Laura along with him. She would’ve been a good alpha when time came, and she would’ve been a good mother when time came, and probably would do something creative. Maybe she would have been a renowned painter, and she would marry a nice guy or a nice girl. He didn’t know. She would have been happy. And Derek reasoned that she got the hardest part, being stuck with a poor excuse of a brother, taking all the responsibility up to herself. The prospect of any future annihilated by their condition. That’s what Derek did; he annihilated any kind of future anyone could dream of. 

“Derek,” a voice calls from behind him. It’s a familiar voice and Derek snaps out of it instantly “Get up.” 

He does so, and brushes the dirt off his Henley shirt and jeans. He looks incredulously at the figure of his mother. She doesn’t look a day older since Derek last saw her. Her calm smile is still there as well as the kind look on her eyes. Derek’s chest aches with how hard he’s missed her. 

“C-Can you see me?” He asks with a weak voice 

“What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t see my own son?” She asks, kindly. Her voice is like a lullaby long forgotten that washes him with relief. 

“Mom.” Derek says, and starts crying. He should be ashamed of being a grown, stubbly man who cries like a baby just by the sight of his mother. But she’s there in front of him, breathing, smiles and the calming voice, and it’s been just so long. He can’t seem to get rid of the enormous lump in his throat. 

Talia closes the space between them and holds Derek in her arms. Her touch is silkery, and Derek knows that there is no matter in her, and that’s why it feels like it. All the memories of when she used to do that comes rushing again to his skin, making it tingle. That only makes him cry harder, the fact that she can touch him and that he hasn’t seen her in so much time. 

“Am I dead, mom?” Derek asks, his face hidden in Talia’s shoulder. 

Talia laughs, a clean sound. “No, child, you aren’t. And that’s why I’m here.” 

Derek manages to smudge tears away from his eyes, looking at Talia with a confused expression. 

“Witch’s curse got you good, right?” 

“How’d you know?” 

“Do you have any idea where you are right now?” Talia asks, raising one eyebrow. Derek shakes his head. 

“You’re in purgatory, Derek. Limbo, The Great Nothing, or whatever. You have been wandering around this world all day, and yet, you aren’t dead.” 

“This is… What?” 

“It’s very difficult to explain. And you’re going to wake up at any second when you break the curse.” 

“How do I do it?” 

“You have to find out for yourself.” 

“Oh, great.” He scowls. 

“Would you prefer if I never got in between? Interrupting your little trip through hell, I mean.” 

“I was – In hell?” 

“Briefly.” 

“How long?” Derek asks with the breath caught in his throat. 

“A few hours.” Talia says and shrugs like it isn’t a big deal. 

“It seems like forever.” 

“Well, it is supposed to look like that, I mean.” 

“Did you ever-“ Derek trails off, too afraid to know what was his mother fate. 

“No.” She answers with a small smile and Derek’s chest heaves with relief “But they say it’s supposed to be different for every person. You go through all your worst memories… While in heaven, it’s… The opposite. And you don’t have to walk alone through them.” 

“It sounds nice.” Derek doesn’t know how his heaven would look like. But his hell was full of many memories. Either way, it seemed like a waste of time to wonder about his heaven, he knows he isn’t going to end up there anyway. 

“Yes.” She says, nonchalantly. “So, tell me about your life.” 

“I got cursed by a witch.” He laughs humorlessly, and Talia lets a loud laugh slip from her lips. 

“I can see that. But I meant, what’s it like? Have you found friends? Love, perhaps?” 

“Friends, I guess. But not love.” Derek looks away. 

“You can’t let it go, can you?” Talia asks with so much pain in her voice that he thinks it was made to mirror his’. “Derek, if you don’t let it go, it’ll destroy you.” 

“There’s not much left of me to destroy.” Derek opens his arms so his mother can take a look at him, like there’s a physical part of his body missing. 

“That’s not true. You’re still my Derek. The sweet boy I knew.” 

Derek snorts and Talia scowls at him. 

“You’re heavy with grief, Derek. You have to let it go.” 

“I can’t!” Derek rises his voice, he’s angry at himself for not letting it go, because the only thing that’s been anchoring him all this time was pain and guilt and he’s afraid that if he lets go, he’ll become nothing. 

“Why not?” Talia asks with a worried expression. 

“I-I don’t know how… I don’t know how to get rid of it, mom. And I don’t know how I can look at my face in the mirror every day when I know what I did to you. To my family.” 

“Derek, is that what you’re worried about?” 

“What? Of course!” 

“Oh, Derek, honey.” Talia begins and chuckles, “Let me tell you something, Derek: the things that happen to us, and only us, like the person who you fall in love with, those are our choices. But we cannot blame ourselves for the choices the people we love make. I know you loved Kate, and I know what she did-“ Talia added quickly, “Word spreads fast here like you wouldn’t even know.” And Derek really doesn’t know, because he doesn’t exactly know where here is. “But the fact that she decided to do bad things with us… That wasn’t your fault, Derek. We make mistakes. And this particular one wasn’t yours.” 

“Mom, I am the reason she burned the house without you even knowing it was her-“ 

“Do you really believe she wouldn’t have done it any other way? Even if she didn’t manage to seduce you like she did?” 

He had never thought like that. He spent too much time blaming himself and only himself for what happened. There wasn’t another scenario for this. Every day since the fire happened Derek had took to himself all of the blame, he couldn’t just accept it not being his fault. 

“I thought so.” His mother says after he spends too much time thinking of an answer “Derek, do you have any idea of how I am here? Of how our family is?” 

Derek’s throat is dry, and he shakes his head no. 

“I am happy. We are happy. I have finally found your father. I am reunited with him, and our family… And Laura.” 

Derek looks up from the bright white spot he’s been looking at the floor with what must have been an inquiring expression in his face, and he feels the lump in his throat and wants to cry again, but he doesn’t. He just manages to blurt out a choked “Laura?” 

“Yes. After so much time of missing them, after so much time of Laura missing us… We are finally together again.” She takes a step further and puts one reassuring hand on Derek’s arm “Look, I am not saying I am not sad about what happened, but I understand why it did happen, Derek. Your father does, your relatives do, and your sister does. Each one of us has our own journeys. Ours ended, and yours is still at full speed. So what are you going to do with it?” 

“I don’t know where to begin.” That was true. 

“Forgive yourself. This burden is too heavy for one to carry alone. Find love. And I don’t mean physical love that rests in someone else. What I mean is for you to fall in love with life again. Drop all the weight you have on your shoulders, Derek. The world isn’t going to fall apart if you do.” 

“I suppose I can try…” 

“That’s all I’m asking.” Talia’s grin is wide. “And if you are prepared, your thread is already entwined with someone.” 

“Thread? What?” 

“The thread of your fate. Your soul mate, Derek.” 

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have one.” 

“Do you want to bet with a ghost? Really? I think I taught you better than that.” For the first time in ages, Derek chuckles. 

“Right. Then, who is it?” 

“Oh, I think you already know, don’t you?” 

“Not the last time I checked.” 

“It isn’t that hard to figure it out, Derek. Just imagine: who would you like to spend your afterlife with? Who would you like to meet in heaven?” Derek argued internally that he would go to heaven, but he ponders anyway. And he has an idea that’s been hiding in his subconscious for months now. Something that’s hidden so well underneath him, but that has become a part of him, and he doesn’t know how to live without it. Or better, him. Because Derek has lost so many things and so many people in his life, but one thing remains unaltered, remains with him, and he’s been so stupid denying it. Denying it for – what? For fear of what? Losing him or for fear of not being worthy of love? Derek’s spent so much time regretting the past that he forgot to live in the present and to see that people care about him. Some in more ways than one. 

“You look like you got it now.” Talia smirked 

“I think I do.” 

“Good.” 

“But even if I want to fix this, I am still cursed. And I don’t know how to break the curse, so…” 

“Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.” 

“Mom, does… Does everyone here meet their soul mates?” Derek asks 

“I believe so.” 

“How do you know?” 

“I found your father.” 

Derek nods, overwhelmed with the knowledge that his family was well, was happy. 

“What about Laura?” 

“Oh. Her destiny hasn’t arrived yet.” 

“But does she know who it is?” A destiny. Derek liked the sound of that. It was simple and it comes through as something that even if you don’t get right in your life, you still are destined to it. Derek understands that there’s no use in being miserable, because we all have to go through our own separate journeys and meet our fates sooner or later. Laura’s fate was to be here, and wait for her destiny. Derek’s fate was to break this curse and go after his own. 

“Well. I believe she does.” 

“Can I know who it is?” 

Talia laughs “Oh, no, sweetheart. I’m afraid not. But I’ll give you something: not everything that’s fire kissed is to harm us.” 

“I don’t get it.” 

“Your sister does, and well, she’s the one that must figure out what it means. Now, while we’re at it, I believe there’s something you must pass along to someone you know very well.” 

“What?” Derek asks and raises one eyebrow 

“A lovely woman named Claudia asked me if I could talk to you to say to her son, that goes by the alias Stiles,” Derek can’t hide the smile that bubbles through his lips and Talia notices, and smiles too “That she is ‘proud of the man he’s become’, and as for you, Claudia remarks that if you don’t treat her son well, you are ‘going to have your grumpy werewolf ass kicked all the way to Mars’”. 

Derek laughs a happy laugh, something that he hasn’t done in years, and his mother joins him. 

“Take care of your destiny, Derek. That boy is as precious as his mother.” Talia says, seriously, and Derek nods even more serious. “Do you know what you have to do now? To break the curse?” 

“I do.” 

“Good. Then, well, this is farewell.” His mother hugs him, and he hugs back, not wanting to let her go. He holds her and all his wounds and all the pain goes away, but it comes back the moment that she loosens her grip on him. “For now, at least. I’ll see you” Talia pinches the tip of his nose, just like she used to do when Derek was a kid “When time comes. And if you don't mind, tell Cora I am really happy about the person she's turned out to be.” Derek nods. 

“I love you, mom.” Derek hugs her and confesses with his nose buried in her hair, she runs a reassuring hand through his upper back. 

“I love you too, sweetheart.” She says back at him. “I’m proud of you.” 

Derek gulps and when Talia gets away from him and fades with a smile on her lips, Derek feels the panic starting to attack him again. But this time, he knows what to do to break the curse. 

He thinks about his family, he thinks about his mother teaching him how to feel the scent of things, he thinks about his father taking them to the Preserve and teaching them what plants heal and what plants are poisonous. He sees that one holiday where his father, Laura and him put together sleds and they played in the snow, and when they got home they all sported dripping hairdos, sore muscles and a satisfied smile on their faces. He remembers Laura, in one of the few moments they had a break of the crippling burden of being the last – or so they thought – surviving Hales, when they painted the flat they lived in New York, and Laura accidentally splashed Derek with some blue paint so they proceeded to have a paint war. Later they just lied down on the floor, bellies aching with laughter, and they felt like brother and sister again, and that they weren’t so destroyed as they thought. He sees Paige and her bright smile, smiling at him from the top of her cello. Slowly, Derek puts together all his happy memories, and suddenly, he knows he can fix all the broken pieces of himself. He knows that he can push through the heartbreaks; he knows he is able to breathe again. 

Derek wakes up to a brick apparent ceiling, and he knows he’s at his loft. He sees a ruffle of something that he doesn’t understand precisely what is, but it’s a flow of reds and rusty color and he remembers what his mother told him, about not everything that’s kissed by fire comes to be their undoing. 

“Told you he wasn’t dead.” Lydia’s face is looking downwards at him. She sports that very own pout she has since day one Derek saw her. Derek suppresses a jolt. Kissed by fire. Lydia. It all makes sense. Lydia is Laura’s destiny. But – How? Lydia didn’t even know Laura or whatsoever. He just has to settle with the explanation that some fates are crossed in inexplicable ways. He interrupts that thought when another face comes in his sight. 

“Yo, Derek, buddy,” Stiles says, worry filling his voice, and Derek thinks he’s never been fonder of the boy such as now, appreciating every mole that traced around Stiles’ skin “Are you okay?” 

Derek pulls himself up and sits on the couch he’s been lying, Stiles is crouched beside him, putting one hand on Derek’s back to help him get up. As soon as Derek’s settled, Stiles takes off his hand, Derek winces. 

“I’m okay.” He says, his voice hoarsely “Witch’s curse.” He chuckles. 

“I figured that much out.” Stiles says, and Derek takes a look around the room. Only pack and friends are there. Scott with his worried puppy eyes, Lydia and an annoyed, but what seems to be a ‘glad you’re okay’ expression, Allison, Isaac and Deaton. “She cursed you with… What, exactly?” 

“I told her to go to hell. So she took me with her.” 

“And obviously you woke up because you were not supposed to be in hell.” Deaton adds. 

“I think so.” Derek glances at Deaton, and it looks like Deaton’s got this whole thing on lockdown. It looks like he knows with whom Derek’s talked with, and whatever catharsis he had. Deaton grins and nods slightly at him, and just then Derek realizes the implied question on his own glance, he asks ‘can I tell him?’ and Deaton’s answer is positive. 

“I… I saw my mother.” 

“In hell?” Scott says “That’s odd.” 

“No. She actually saved me from there, I think. I don’t know exactly.” Scott nods and lets out a little ‘aah’. “She… Um… Your mother.” He turns to Stiles “She’s told mine to tell you that she’s proud of you. Proud of the man you’ve become.” Derek says slowly, waiting for Stiles to drink up every word. Stiles doesn’t say it’s bullshit, nor any of the other people in the room. If anything, they seem really touched by it. Derek glances at Stiles one more time, and the boy has tears welling up in his eyes, but he doesn’t cry. 

Stiles just says in a choked voice “That’s very nice of her.” 

And that’s it for Derek. Not as much as Stiles needs a hug, Derek needs one himself. He just takes Stiles in his arms, and kisses him. The kiss lingers, and it’s glorious. And it’s delicate. And it’s everything Derek ever thought it would be. Two kindred souls, two boys that lost so many but still managed, two soul mates. Derek gently kisses Stiles lower lip, and Stiles is at first surprised, but then he smiles. 

And Derek is sure that that is how it’s supposed to be. Stiles is his destiny. Where he ends and begins and that every single moment they lived, they all led up to here. To the point where they could finally find comfort in each other. They would never have to be alone anymore. Stiles is the one who pulls away from the kiss, “Are you sure you’re really okay?” He whispers, still disbelieving. 

Derek smiles and assures him, “For the first time in a long time, I am. We are.” 

Stiles agrees and kisses Derek again. 

As the others resume their activities, while Derek still is gloriously kissing Stiles, Lydia says “I told you so McCall, pay up.” 

Scott grunts in return. “I should’ve known better. It’s just I always bet Stiles would be the one to kiss first, he was so close,” Scott raises his voice in their direction “So close, Stiles!” 

Stiles parts from Derek and throws Scott an apologetic smile, Scott just shakes his head and smiles in return. He’s happy that Stiles is also happy. 

For a long time, while the others leave them alone, they just stand there kissing, missing each other like they already knew where they fit from past lives, and then they just sit together and hold hands, and they talk. They really talk. Something that neither ever did, they talk about their qualities and their fears and their innocent banter. And Derek’s in pure bliss. 

Stiles is Derek's fate. And he’s completely okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> So one day I was reading this excerpt by Anne Carson (which is the same excerpt that I begin the fic with), from a poem of Glass Essay, and I sent it to my best friend and I told her WOW THIS IS PRETTY GOOD IT MAKES ME THINK OF DEREK, and she goes YEAH ME TOO. And then I asked her: WHAT IF I WROTE A FIC INSPIRED BY IT, and here we are. I hope you enjoyed it, because really THE FEELS. I'm very happy with how's turn out. By the way, the title is taken from the same poem by Anne Carson, which is called Whacher, and it's very pretty. If you want, you can shoot me a message on tumblr at aerosmut.tumblr.com
> 
> Thanks!


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